This fast-paced YA debut novel has it all: smart, savvy characters making their way through an eerily dystopian society, with all the requisite action, adventure and romance characteristic of the genre vividly and at times, chillingly, portrayed.

In a wild and lawless future, where life is cheap and survival is hard, eighteen-year-old Saba lives with her father, her twin brother Lugh, her young sister Emmi and her pet crow Nero. Theirs is a hard and lonely life. The family resides in a secluded shed, their nearest neighbour living many miles away and the lake, their only source of water and main provider of food, gradually dying from the lack of rain. But Saba's father refuses to leave the place where he buried his beloved wife, Allis, nine years ago. Allis died giving birth to Emmi, and Saba has never forgiven her sister for their mother's death.

But while she despises Emmi, Saba adores her twin brother Lugh. Golden-haired and blue-eyed, loving and good, he seems the complete opposite to dark-haired Saba, who is full of anger and driven by a ruthless survival instinct. To Saba, Lugh is her light and she is his shadow, he is the day, she is the nighttime, he is beautiful, she is ugly, he is good, she is bad.

So Saba's small world is brutally torn apart, when a group of armed riders arrives five day's after the twin's eighteenth birthday snatch Lugh away. Saba's rage is so wild, that she manages to drive the men away, but not before they have captured Lugh and killed their father.

And here begins Saba's epic quest to rescue Lugh, during which she is tested by trials she could not have imagined, and one that takes the reader on breathtaking ride full or romance, physical adventure and unforgettably vivid characters, making this a truly sensational YA debut novel.

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Product Description

Review

“It’s Mad Max and The Hunger Games meets True Grit. . . .The author moves between ruthless action and gorgeous, buttery narration. . . . In the hands of a lesser writer, that style might have dragged, but first-time author Young is talented, and she’s just getting started. . . This is a must-read, where girls rescue boys, and where the future looms up full of hope and loss, struggles and archetypes that give the story a timeless, classic edge.” –The Globe and Mail

“Eerie and adventurous. . .on par with Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games and Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker. . . Blood Red Road has a cinematic quality that makes it white-hot. . . .The fervor is more than warranted.”–LA Times

“Brutal and thrilling.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Not only will it satisfy the cravings of Hunger Games fans, but it is—dare I say—better than The Hunger Games. . . . This book will blow you away. . . . Blood Red Road simply delivers. The story, the writing, the characters and the narrative voice are stunning and completely original, setting this book apart from the crowd of dystopian novels.” —Hollywood Crush, MTV.com

“[Blood Red Road is] poised to be the next big thing in teen fiction, and with good reason. . . . The world . . . is beautifully wrought, as well as terrifyingly plausible. . . . Young has taken familiar pieces of everything from Gladiator to Lord of the Rings and put them in the hands of a spunky, moody heroine who breaths new life into old motifs.” —Quill & Quire

“[Blood Red Road] mashes together McCarthy’s intensity with a laconic narrative style taken from the literature of the American west. . . . Yes, this is the perfect apocalypse for pre-teens.” —The Guardian (UK)

“Young adults will enjoy reading this story of the transformation that is possible when you fight for what you believe in and know in your heart that it is right.” —National Post

“Blood Red Road is an epic adventure set in a violent future world and nothing is as it seems. Young manages to breathe life into her characters with little insights that warm the heart.” —The Sun Daily

About the Author

MOIRA YOUNG was born in New Westminster, BC, where she attended the University of British Columbia before heading to the UK to study drama. After a few years of performing on the alternative comedy circuit and tap-dancing on a West End stage, Young returned to Vancouver where she successfully trained as an opera singer. Returning to the UK, she sang in some of London's most prestigious venues. Young has now returned to her first love - writing - with her debut novel, Blood Red Road. Moira Young lives in Bath, England with her husband.

Saba and her twin brother, Lugh, are 18 years old. They are as close as siblings can be, and Saba lives and breathes for Lugh. For the most part, they have been raised by their father. Their mother died in childbirth when their younger sister, Emmi, was born when the twins were 10 years old. Saba is resentful of Emmy and blames her for causing their mother's death. Lugh is the kinder one, and he does what he can to make Emmi happy.

Saba's father, Willem, reads the stars. Lugh thinks it is nonsense, but Saba believes her father when he warns her to be strong and not give into fear because, one day, Lugh and Emmi and many others will need her. He makes her promise to never give up, and she assures him that she is not a quitter. Four horsemen come, and they take Lugh away. Willem is killed during the melee, and Saba promises Lugh that she will find him.

Saba and Emmi now only have each other. Willem always told Saba to go to Crosscreek and find Mercy, who was her mother's friend, should anything happen. It is a three-day journey on foot. Saba explains what has happened and asks Mercy to look after Emmi while she goes off in search for Lugh. Mercy agrees, and Saba sets off. Saba gets captured and is taken to Hopetown, where her head is shaved and she is forced to engage in cage fights against other women. She earns the nickname of "The Angel of Death." There, she meets a mysterious man named Jack who is another cage-fighter.Read more ›

Critics compare this novel with Hunger Games, so I had high hopes and bought one right away. And read it right away, so it was good enough, but not as good as Hunger Games. It gets off to a great start in a manner reminiscent of Mad Max: Road Warrior. However, some elements seem lifted directly from HG and barely concealed by new names. BRR visits some of the same topics as HG, but with less finesse and subtlety. Characters are not as fully developed. BRR reminds me of the first Harry Potter in that there is room for growth, and I expect this young writer will, like JK Rowling, gain better control of her story as the series progresses. I will direct my student fans of HG to this book, but it will not become a classroom tool for starting the post-apocalyptic conversation. It does not as cleanly hold up the mirror to real life, except in the parts borrowed from HG.

While the plot of this book held great potential I felt that the narrative devices used in this book were weak at best. The writing style of this book is difficult to follow and comes off as clumsy for most of the story.

With the exception of Saba (our hero) the other characters are one dimensional and their decisions lack any kind of internal consistency. A character will be a brute one minute and a savior the next without any explanation or reason. As if the author couldn't be bothered to devote time to develop motivations or histories on any secondary characters.

Then there is the adventure itself which seems to be more about Saba being lucky then possessing any kind of skill or survival instinct. Every difficult situation Saba finds herself in seems to be resolved by lucky circumstance or an impossible coincidence rather than any effort on Saba's part. Every character she encounters is also either the one person who just happens to have the knowledge she needs to go to the next stage of her quest or someone who will drop everything they are doing to help her. Given the narrative sets up a cruel, harsh and untrusting world I found this overabundance of trust and helpfulness from everyone she meets a little difficult to swallow.

At the end of the day the book is 450 page of Saba feeling sorry for herself while her quest is more about happenstance and fortuitous circumstance than the cunning survivalist heroine the book jacket leads us to believe.

I had heard really good things about Blood Red Road and of course the quote on the cover -- "Better than The Hunger Games . . . This book will blow you away." -- made me want to read it! Better than The Hunger Games? No way! But, even if it's close, I gotta check it out. So, I started reading it and was thrown into this crazy writing style. K, the characters in this society have accents and say things like "jest" instead of "just" and "an" instead of "and" and so on. But, the thing that I found really strange was that this twang of theirs was in the narration as well as the dialogue. If it was just the dialogue, it wouldn't have been as bad. Oh, and there's no quotation marks! What? This drove me nuts! I wanted to stop reading at the beginning. I read one chapter and was like okay, I can't read a whole book like this! It's going to take me forever to get through! But ... but ... I had heard such great things about it. So, I went on Goodreads to look at some reviews. Most of them complained about the writing and how it's hard to get through, but once you get used to it, it's soooo worth it. So, I proceeded.

The story was good. There was a good amount of action and a touch of romance. This story takes place in a dystopian society, but it's not clear that it's a dystopia right away. The narrator, Saba, and her family live isolated, away from any cities or any other people. But, then, some strangers come and kidnap Saba's brother, Lugh, destroying her family and everything she's ever known. So, she goes on an adventure in an attempt to come to Lugh's rescue and learns a lot about her society along the way.

The characters were okay. I'm not sure they were all too memorable, but they were good enough. I hated Saba at first.Read more ›